Coast Miwok language

Last updated
Coast Miwok
Native to United States
Region California
Ethnicity Coast Miwok
Extinct 1978 with the death of Sarah Ballard [1]
Yok-Utian
Language codes
ISO 639-3 csi
Glottolog coas1301
ELP Coast Miwok

Coast Miwok was one of the Miwok languages spoken in California, from San Francisco Bay to Bodega Bay. [2] The Marin and Bodega varieties may have been separate languages. All of the population has shifted to English.

Contents

Grammar

According to Catherine A. Callaghan's Bodega Miwok Dictionary, nouns have the following cases, expressed with suffixes: present subjective, possessive, allative, locative, ablative, instrumental, and comitative. Sentences are most commonly subject-verb-object, but Callaghan says that "syntax is relatively free". [3]

Phonology

The following is the Bodega dialect:

Consonants
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Stop plain p t k ʔ '
voiced( b )( d )( ɡ )
Affricate c
Fricative ( f ) s ʃ h
Tap ( ɾ ) r
Approximant w l j y

Phonemes in parentheses are introduced from Spanish loan words. Allophones of introduced sounds, /b ɡ/ include /β ɣ/. [3]

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

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References

  1. Coast Miwok at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. Coast Miwok at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  3. 1 2 Callaghan, Catherine A. (1970). Bodega Miwok Dictionary. University of California Press.